Wrapped Up Like a Bathroom on the Right

Pomona College English Department Chair Kevin J.H. Dettmar observes that our mis-hearings of the less-intelligible parts of rock songs often help us develop our own abilities to think and understand things -- not just the songs.

These mis-hearings are usually called mondegreens, working with the term Sylvia Wright coined in 1954 to describe her mis-hearing of a poem her mother read her in her childhood. The post title conflates two of the better-known: "wrapped up like a douche" from Manfred Mann's version of Bruce Springsteen's "Blinded by the Light," which was supposed to be "cut loose like a deuce" (Springsteen) or "revved up like a deuce" (Mann); and "there's a bathroom on the right" from Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Bad Moon on the Rise," which was supposed to be the title line, "There's a bad moon on the rise."

Anyway, Prof. Dettmar notes how some other mondegreens develop when people who can't understand the lyrics of a song study them to try to figure out what's being sung. Those, unlike the two from my title, may have some deep meaning of their own and those of us developing them may prefer our own version to the ones actually written down. He cites rock critic Dave Marsh's careful study of Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit," which produced a version of its admittedly hard-to-comprehend lyrics that varies pretty widely from what a lot of people understand Kurt Cobain to be growling and shrieking. He insists that the meaning he assigned "Spirit" and the story behind it was better than the actual one, and even though Marsh's preference for his own version of the facts will not surprise anyone who's read him, Prof. Dettmar's suggestion is that the creativity such efforts engage is a way we can learn how to think. He recounts his own mondegreen from a Gang of Four song and how it did that for him.

There's a lot to what Prof. Dettmar says. My own mondegreen version of this involves the old Irish folk song "Follow Me up to Carlow," the story of how Irish forces led by the Lord of Ranelagh, Fiach Mac Aodh Ó Broin, defeated English troops in 1580 at the Battle of Glenmalure. I first heard it on Londonderry Aire by the Kansas City Celtic trio Bully Ruse, and then later on Live at Six Strings and Coffee Beans, by another Kansas City Celtic and folk music trio, Tullamore.

The chorus praises the valor of the Irish forces, and especially the valor and leadership of Ó Broin. One line runs, "Fiach will do what Fiach will dare." Reading that, I would have said the word starting with F is pronounced "feeyach" or maybe "feeyak." But it's Celtic, so the actual pronunciation is more like "fay'" with a kind of glottal stop at the end; in fact the full name Fiach Mac Aodh Ó Broin is usually Anglicized to "Fiach McHugh O'Byrne." So when I heard the line the first time, I heard "Fay' will do what fay' will dare," which is not different enough from "Faith will do what faith will dare" to keep a fellow in my line of work from filling that in as the meaning. When I had the chance to read the actual lyrics I was disappointed, as I liked my version much better.

But on the other hand, now I get to say, "Faith will do what faith will dare" as my own aphorism. So there's that.